Castle of Black Iron

Of course, this young man was Zhang Tie.

Even Zhang Tie had not imagined that he could see such a hideous scene in this maple woods of Helan Mountain Range. Over these days, as Zhang Tie had seen so many righteous, loyal men and strange commoners who assisted each other when in evacuation in Peacewest Military Region, he felt very disgusted the moment he saw these people.

All the maple leaves were red in the woods. Those corps turned a large area of land red too, which looked miserable, icy and brutal…

Just now, Zhang Tie tried a hypnosis soul-controlling secret skill in Bloody Soul Sutra on these small figures. Zhang Tie could have these small figures commit suicide only by moving his own lips.

Steward Li penetrated a dagger through his own heart. He was gazing at the sky with extremely pale eyes even though he was already dead.

Greed and betrayal always existed wherever there were people. However, Zhang Tie was still shocked when he saw servants and concubines screwing up their master. Watching the painful expression of Steward Li, Zhang Tie suddenly thought about a question——as all humans have their hideous side, will I also suffer from such a betrayal due to others’ greed?

When it occurred to Zhang Tie’s mind, Zhang Tie’s heart pounded. Closely after that, Zhang Tie forgot about it. As it was in the holy war, it was not necessary for him to be worried about that here.

Although this Steward Li was as weak as an ant in Zhang Tie’s eyes, this person had terrifying thoughts and means.

As Zhang Tie had not read too many books, he knew less about medicaments and pills. Therefore, if Steward Li didn’t mention it, Zhang Tie didn’t even know that potassium iodate would make male lack sperms, not to mention that demons and Three-eye Association once changed potassium iodide into potassium iodate in the table salt of Hua people before the Catastrophe. Most of the people didn’t have such a remote knowledge. Even though Zhang Tie was a knight, he didn’t know all the details of the knowledge and history before the Catastrophe.

Zhang Tie only knew that Blackhot City lacked iodine in the inland. At his mom’s request, he would always buy 2 bags of table salt for his family each year. Additionally, the iodine indeed existed in terms of potassium iodide; instead of potassium iodate. Even if the salt was added with potassium iodide, his mom who was responsible for the food and drinks of the family still prevented them from eating too much table salt.

Only after thinking about it for a short while, Zhang Tie had dropped it. As for Zhang Tie, if he wanted to know the dangers and influences of potassium iodate to human beings or how demons and Three-eye Association screwed up Hua people by changing the elements of their table salt before the Catastrophe, he only needed to enter the trouble-reappearance situation of Xuanyuan Hill and look them up in the database of Human Pharmacists Union Headquarters. He could definitely get the most authoritative and professional literature and research materials over there. Otherwise, he could directly ask his elder brother Zhang Yang. Zhang Yang was also a pharmacist, who must know much more than Steward Li on this aspect.

However, it was unnecessary!

“Even if you’ve read too many books, it doesn’t work if you don’t follow the path of righteousness.” Zhang Tie let out a sigh with emotions as he took out the gold checks from Steward Li’s body.

These people deserved to die. However, money was not guilty. Zhang Tie shouldn’t waste these gold checks which were worth over 600,000 gold coins. Such a bit of money was not worth mentioning for Zhang Tie; however, the amount of 600,000-odd gold coins was already an astronomical figure for commoners.

Only after bending his body, he would enable 50,000 refugees to have a residence. Of course, Zhang Tie would like to do that. Zhang Tie was not that high-hearted. As for a person who grudged drinking a bowl of rice brew only to save some copper coins, Zhang Tie knew better about the power of money when in dangerous and a chaotic world.

After throwing those gold checks into Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie didn’t stay here anymore; instead, he walked towards the depth of the maple woods. This was an ugly performance that revealed the hideous side of humans that Zhang Tie met in Helan Mountain Range over the past 2 months.

Of course, Zhang Tie was not here especially to watch this performance.

It was just a coincidence. Actually, this maple woods was the most dangerous place in Helan Mountain Range; instead of only providing those dead guys with syrup. Those guys who only thought about hundreds of thousands of gold coins couldn’t see the dangers at all…

At this moment, besides knight scouts such as Zhang Tie, there were also a lot of human fighters in Helan Mountain Range. These human fighters were sentinels and field scouts of Black Armor Army in this region. Their mission was almost like that of Zhang Tie’s, namely being the eyes and ears of Blackwater Base in Helan Mountain Range. Because there were too many sentinels and field scouts, the messages that they sent back to Blackwater Base could complement and verify the messages sent by Zhang Tie and the other earth knight scouts. Sometimes, when these sentinels and field scouts discovered the traces of local knights, they could even send the message to Blackwater Base and have Blackwater Base send an early warning to Zhang Tie and the other earth knight scouts in the nearby. Therefore, these sentinels and field scouts were also unnecessary forces of humans in Helan Mountain Range——In holy wars, those in battlefields were not only knights.

Zhang Tie received the message from Blackwater Base 2 days ago. He was told that a large number of human sentinels and field scouts had disappeared in this region of Helan Mountain Range on the border between Yunze Prefecture of Huanzhou Province and Jishi Prefecture of Wuzhou Province and lost contact with Blackwater Base completely in late 2 weeks. 2 days ago, an earth knight scout assigned by Blackwater Base to this region, also one of the 20 earth knight scouts from Youzhou Province lost his contact with Blackwater Base too.

As a knight scout, even though Zhang Tie didn’t discover anything, he should also send a message to Blackwater Base every day to express that he was still alive and in his post. This was also one of the methods that scout knights adopted to send an early warning to Blackwater Base. They were sending an early warning back to the base at the risk of their lives. If an earth knight lost contact with Blackwater Base for 2 days for no reason, he probably would have been killed by the enemy.

As too many human sentinels and scouts had disappeared in this region of Helan Mountain Range and Zhang Tie was mainly patrolling the neighboring region, therefore, Blackwater Base sent an order to Zhang Tie to have him take a look over here.

Other knights could barely discover a problematic place in the mountain range which covered over 500,000 square miles for 10 days; however, it only took Zhang Tie 2 days to discover this problematic region which covered over 10,000 square miles and confirmed that the problem might be in the vast maple woods or nearby.

Zhang Tie just walked into the maple woods leisurely. Even if he stepped onto tree leaves, he didn’t make any sound. Although there was still dew in the shrubs and weeds, they couldn’t stick to Zhang Tie’s clothes at all as if they were isolated by a bizarre strength. Zhang Tie just walked in the woods like a shadow.

Only after walking a few minutes in the maple woods, Zhang Tie had discovered something from less than 300 m away from where Steward Li made the spree killing for money.

Zhang Tie saw a metal pipe which was 20 cm in length and 2 cm in width on a trunk of a tall sugar maple. The inside of the metal pipe had been frozen by syrup.

Zhang Tie drew that metal pipe out of the trunk. The metal pipe was black with one sharp end. After looking at it carefully, Zhang Tie identified that it was a multi-purpose tool carried by field scouts of Taixia Country. With this tool, they could release a needle quietly. The needle could kill a target or a wild prey which had no defensive mentality quietly within 50 m. Additionally, this tool could accelerate blood flow when it was stabbed into people’s body as the wound could be hardly healed. Of course, they could also insert this metal pipe into the trunk to drink and collect syrup.

A field scout would never casually drop this tool. Given the spot, this pipe had been inserted into the trunk for a few days.

Zhang Tie looked at the ground under the trunk and found some special trace with the sensory perceptions of knight’s consciousness. After walking less than 10 m along the trace, he had seen a small bloody piece of camouflage coat of a wild scout…

Zhang Tie picked the small piece of cloth. Closely after that, he looked up at the sky and made a bizarre hand gesture. Soon after that, a woodpecker and 4 titmice have flown over here. After flying around Zhang Tie for a short while, the woodpecker and 3 titmice flew away while the other titmouse landed onto Zhang Tie’s palm which carried a small piece of camouflage cloth. After jumping up a couple of times in Zhang Tie’s hand, it nodded and flew away towards another direction of the maple woods.

Zhang Tie then followed that titmouse…